Love: It's a word we use a lot. But what exactly is love?

Shakespeare tells us that "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds."

A 1950s song and film tell us that "Love is a many-splendored thing, it's the April rose that only grows in the early spring."

There are books about the five "love languages," with quizzes to find out how one receives and communicates love. A Christian couple offer has an entire ministry devoted to "Love and Respect."

Karol Wojtyła, who would later become, Pope John Paul II, wrote a book called "Love and Responsibility." Among other things, he wrote: 

Love consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom - it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one's freedom on behalf of another.

Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i faith, offered these words:

In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold.

One often-quoted passage of the Bible has this to say:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NIV

From Buddha, we get this:

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

The Persian poet Rumi, who was a Sufi mystic, begins one of his poems this way: 

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.

What does love mean to you? Leave a comment, and share your viewpoint.